


"Cats are just... like that, right?"

by cpt_winniethepooh



Series: Happy Steve Bingo fills [13]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, Hawkeye (Comics), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: BAMF Clint Barton, Bucky Barnes & Clint Barton Friendship, Bucky Barnes Recovering, Cats, Clint Barton Is a Good Bro, Flerken, Fluff and Humor, Kittens, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Recovery, References to Depression
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-28
Updated: 2020-12-28
Packaged: 2021-03-10 19:35:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,799
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28322457
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cpt_winniethepooh/pseuds/cpt_winniethepooh
Summary: After HYDRA and the Helicarriers and the Fight, Bucky comes to the Tower with Steve to heal  - except he can't, because the Avengers are a Lot and they are everywhere and aren't really helping his recovery.The only exception is somehow Clint, who offers Bucky to stay with him in Brooklyn while things calm down.Things, however, do not calm down. Out of nowhere Nick Fury delivers a box full of kittens who behave like cats and yet do not behave like cats at all. They are, in fact, closer to little demons than cats. But it must be fine; after all, cats are just... like that, right?A Happy Steve Bingo fill for the prompt 'kittens'; a Bucky Barnes Bingo fill for the prompt 'support group' and a Stucky Bingo fill for the prompt 'childhood friends'.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers
Series: Happy Steve Bingo fills [13]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1139174
Comments: 17
Kudos: 122
Collections: Bucky Barnes Bingo 2020, Stucky Bingo 2020





	"Cats are just... like that, right?"

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Menatiera](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Menatiera/gifts).



> Heavily inspired by me and my partner getting cats and one of them legitimately behaving like a little demon at times. Also inspired by [Sorry About the Blood In Your Mouth](https://archiveofourown.org/works/2180394) by annelesbonny which is amazing and you should all read it if you haven't.  
> Huge thanks to Menatiera for cheerleading and brainstorming!!! <3
> 
> Written for: 2018's Happy Steve Bingo's 'kittens', the Stucky Bingo 'childhood friends' and Bucky Barnes Bingo's 'support group' prompts.

If anybody were to ask Clint about who was the smartest Avenger, he certainly would put himself last. There is Stark, of course, who built an empire by being a genius; Bruce, with his nine thousand diplomas; Nat, who is excellent at reading and maneuvering people, situations and circumstances; Cap, who has an unparalleled sense for strategies and moral dilemmas; and Thor, who is almost as good as Nat when it comes to using assumptions to his advantage, and (likely in no small part thanks to growing up with Loki) is the best with people out of all of them.

Clint? Eh. He's good with arrows, but Katie-Kate is much better. He's an above-average spy, maybe, but leagues behind Nat still. He doesn't even have the kind of unwavering moral compass that Cap and Spider-Man have.

If asked, he'd say that his strongest skill was his sixth sense about how... _good_ people were. It's not a people-skill, like Thor's, or finding secrets out, like Nat; it's this weird feeling he gets somewhere below his ribs randomly that tells him that _this person is worth knowing and helping_. Its absence is not conclusive, but when it's there, it's always spot on.

Even Coulson learned to trust it: that's how they got Nat and Thor on the Avengers. So secretly Clint's kind of proud of that, just a bit, because hey, that was something nobody else would have done and it worked.

All this is a long-winded way of saying that when Cap shows up at the Avengers Tower with James 'Bucky' Barnes, former Winter Soldier and former-former childhood best friend, Clint also gets this almost-gut feeling, tells Coulson about it, and the already deployed SWAT-team ends up not having to fight Cap after all.

Coulson doesn't even call him up to tell him that ‘he better be right'. He just orders the SWAT team back and tells the Avengers not to let Barnes A, kill anybody and B, leave the Tower without prior warning, which, as far as Clint is concerned, is as low a bar as it could get.

Barnes is reserved at first and Clint doesn't see him much. That's okay; Clint has to take down a crime syndicate and then help Kate throw a birthday party, the latter of which being considerably harder than the former, and so he doesn't spend that much time in the Tower anyway. He figures Barnes needs Rogers above all else, and Rogers is determined to follow Coulson's rules to a T.

When he gets back a few weeks later, he is surprised to see that's not the case. Well, Barnes hasn't killed anybody and hasn't left, but he is even more grumpy and grimacing than before. And at first Clint thinks he's imagining things, but no, after a few days it becomes clear that Barnes is avoiding everybody but him.

Clint is at the shooting range and all of a sudden Barnes is there to watch quietly. Clint is making midnight hot chocolate and Barnes shows up to try some out. He's playing Mario Cart and within half an hour of Barnes learning the game, he beats Clint.

Clint strains for a few days to figure it out: as he said, he ain't the smartest. But maybe, this time, that's an advantage.

"You used to hate turtlenecks," Cap says to Barnes one morning. Then, a bit later, "What do you mean no sugar?"

Clint tenses up involuntarily just by hearing it, and Barnes's shoulders rise up, his back goes rigid, and he excuses himself and leaves. Cap just looks sadly after him, then also leaves (through a different door) to mope and doodle (no doubt the old Bucky) into his notebook before Clint could say anything.

"Seriously, all we need are a few more tests and we can figure this out," Stark tells Barnes one afternoon, gesturing wildly at the metal arm. Said arm is balled into a fist, but Stark doesn't notice or just doesn't care. "Maybe we can even make an MRI work to see how it connects to your brain!"

Barnes dons a face of blank emptiness. "I will ask Steve about it," he says, and Stark and Clint both know that Steve will say no.

What Stark is less likely to know, but Clint is suspecting, that Barnes has no intention of actually asking Steve.

Nat talks to Barnes in Russian. Clint actually overhears Cap encouraging this in order to 'try to connect with the old Bucky’, and he almost shoots them both on sight. Clint doesn't speak much Russian, but he understands when she approaches Barnes with 'Yasha' and 'spider training' and 'bad porridge'. He tries to dissuade Nat later, after witnessing that Barnes becomes even more tight-lipped with her, but he’s not the best at describing his hunch so it doesn’t go anywhere.

Wilson should be the best with Barnes, really, given his line of work and experience with vets, but whenever he's around, he and Barnes can't stop insulting each other. It would be hilarious if it didn't leave Barnes with genuine lines of annoyance around his eyes and even more dark circles the next day, no doubt the sign of a night unwell slept.

The only ones Clint doesn't see Barnes around are Thor, because he went back to Asgard for some family emergency, and Banner, because he and Barnes seem to want to avoid each other in equal measure.

That leaves Clint as the only one Barnes regularly hangs out with.

"Idiots, aren't they," Clint offers him one night, when once again, he is practicing with his newest arrows and Barnes is reading a book by the corner.

Barnes looks up darkly. "Mhm?"

"I can shut up," Clint says. "The rest of the team can't."

Barnes closes the book and lets his head thump back at the wall. "No," he sighs.

"Do you want better conversation partners or silence with company?"

Barnes eyes him for a few moments. Clint spends the time shooting a new round into the dummy at the far side of the room.

"Silent company is welcome," Barnes finally says. "I don't know what to talk about."

"Anything you want," Clint offers. "I may not have something smart to say back though."

Barnes huffs out a laugh. "Anything is better than 'the old Bucky this, the old Bucky that,' or 'oooh I wanna see that arm,' or 'hey remember when we killed that guy together,' or 'oh look at me, I have my life together and can do what Cap does just slower'."

He looks mildly surprised by his outburst, but Clint guffaws.

"I get it," he says. "How about Banner?"

"We get tense around each other, and that's not good for anybody," Barnes says. "Still, I..."

But then he trails off.

Clint cocks his head to the side.

"Want to be around people, just not them?"

Barnes droops his head down. "That seems ungrateful, doesn't it? I get to hang out with the best people in the world, after everything I've done–"

"No," Clint interrupts. "That's called self-care, and you need to practice it."

Barnes hums, contemplating.

"You know what you need," Clint says with sudden inspiration. "To get away for a while."

"Right. And where would that be?" Barnes asks, with the implication being 'where would they let me go?'.

"Weeeell," Clint says, "I happen to know a place."

That's how Barnes – scratch that, Bucky, at this point – ends up moving to Bed Stuy with him.

Coulson wasn't too thrilled, but Clint promised the same good behavior as in the Tower; and besides, there was no legal way of keeping Bucky effectively hostage.

The Avengers were even less thrilled, to say the least.

"What do you mean you're moving out?" Steve asked.

"That I won't be living here anymore," Bucky said with his one backpack firmly on his shoulder.

"But," Steve said. "But."

"You can still visit him," Clint said, patting him on the shoulder. And then they were on the train to Brooklyn.

"The place is pretty self-explanatory," Clint says. "Living room, gym equipment over there, bedroom and bathroom upstairs at the loft. Dog everywhere."

Lucky is meeting them right as they are stepping inside, with her tail wagging lazily.

"You have a dog!" Bucky exclaims, and crouches down to let it sniff him.

"Yeah, he's Lucky."

"Aw, you're missing an eye," Bucky says, scratching behind Lucky's ears, and Clint knows he's made a good decision.

Bucky sleeps in the living room, mostly with Lucky, so good thing Clint's not the jealous type. He offered the bedroom up, by the way, but Bucky declined. Clint remembers what it was like after Loki, and so he doesn't even offer to leave the apartment. Bucky needs company to re-learn to be human, to re-socialize, and while Clint thinks he's not the best candidate, he clearly is the best they have. Hence Bucky on the couch, Clint in his bedroom, Lucky wherever he wants.

Bucky isn't exactly more talkative with Clint, but he seems to enjoy hanging out in companiable silence. He _does_ , however, chatter with Lucky a _lot_. He always has a kind word or two to offer, always asks Lucky's opinion on the weather or food, and takes him down to the nearby park twice a day.

"I bought hot-dogs," he announces sometimes, when he gets home, and on those days Clint doesn't have to worry about dinner.

Other times they order take-out and watch cartoons all day, and Clint doesn't ask where Bucky has the money from, and Bucky doesn't ask where the place is from. Some of those days Bucky doesn’t speak at all, but when he eventually does again, it’s always to thank Clint for not pushing him.

And then, one day, out of the blue, Nick Fury shows up at their doorstep with a cardboard box.

There are muffled, shuffling sounds coming from inside, and it wobbles slightly in his hands.

"What's in the box?" Clint asks.

"I have an assignment for you," Fury says and steps inside. He raises an eyebrow at Bucky on the couch, playing with the Wii, but Clint refuses to believe he didn't know about this.

Lucky trots over and wags his tail at the box, which, while not completely trustworthy, means that whatever's inside probably won't kill them instantly.

"A friend is out of town and needs these looking after," Fury goes on and drops the box into Clint's arms.

Clint peers inside. Furious hissing and growling answers. Bucky has paused the game and is looking at them curiously.

"I can't look after kittens," Clint says.

"You already have a dog," Fury says.

"That– a dog and kittens are not the same. Sir."

"I trust your ability to improvise," Fury says, and then with a flurry of his black coat, disappears.

"Did the man I thought I'd killed just leave us a box of kittens?" Bucky asks conversationally.

Clint almost waves, then realizes he shouldn't let go of the box and ends up shrugging. "I tried to kill him and most of the Avengers too. It's fine. But as for the kittens – I think so?"

He walks to the couch to get the box to safety before he drops it or something, and he and Bucky look inside with what interest mixed with trepidation.

There are three of them: an orange tabby, a fully black one, and one white as a snow, all with yellow eyes and fur that looks too big on their tiny bodies. All have matching expressions of righteous indignation and are hissing up at them furiously. Lucky sniffs the air but doesn't come closer – smart dog. He knows he’d be beaten in a fight like this.

The internet tells them to put a towel in the bathtub and set up camp there because the kittens need a safe and contained space. Bucky goes out and buys cat litter and toys and a carton of kitten food, and then he also ends up being the one to transport them out of the cardboard.

"They don't like me," Clint says and shows the new dozen scratches on his arm that he just got.

Bucky uses his metal arm to avoid further bloodshed, and places them one by one onto the towel.

All of their claws are out, tails high and puffed up, and they are screaming ferociously.

"Aren't they adorable," Bucky murmurs.

To each their own, Clint supposes; then again, he thinks Lucky is adorable with his missing eye and patchy fur.

They leave them water in a shallow bowl and food, and litter also, and then go to sleep.

Well. Clint goes to sleep. He is pretty sure Bucky spends all night in the bathroom, watching over the kittens as if anything could happen to them.

"They did climb the shower curtain," Bucky says in the morning defensively, and shows the curtain that is shredded to pieces.

"Eh," Clint waves and goes to make coffee. It's too early to deal with this shit.

The thing is, they are both depressed. It's not– Clint knows this. Firstly, he has Kate who repeatedly tells him so, and then he also has done research and yeah, the symptoms are pretty evident. Bucky is similar, but differently: he undersleeps instead of oversleeping, but he does eat more than Clint, who sometimes forgets to get food for days. Both of them struggle with clean clothes, but Bucky showers religiously.

Having Lucky in this state is was a blessing and a curse by itself: sometimes Clint wasn't sure how he could keep him alive, but Kate always helped, and nothing was as healing as having the dog softly snoring by his side at night. The kittens are an entirely different matter.

They need attention 24/7, and the Internet is not really helpful.

For starters, it was said that they wouldn't be able to get out of the bathtub. In reality they instantly manage to jump/climb out, and then find their way on top of the medicine cabinet, chew up all the toothbrushes, and destroy the toilet paper. Bucky almost gets a heart attack when he needs to fish the black one out of the toilet where it is splashing around happily.

"You could've drowned!" he admonishes, panic clear in his voice.

The kitten hisses at him out of habit.

They give up on bathroom contamination within three days. That is also the day they say farewell to any resemblance of peace and quiet and the rest of their worry-free hours, because the kittens are _everywhere_.

"It says they're not supposed to be able to do that yet," Bucky says, browsing kitten forums, while Clint is doing his best to rescue the white kitten from the curtain rod – or rescue the curtain rod itself based on the wobbling.

"Tell that to this one," Clint says.

He ends up being the one to tear the rod out of the wall as he falls from the chair when the white jumps onto his head. Bucky, of course, is only worried about the kitten.

"You'll heal," he waves, when clint points at the new bruise on his elbow.

"It would too! Cats have nine lives!"

Bucky is much better with the kittens, a fact which Clint chucks entirely up to his metal arm.

"It's not fair, you can't be scratched up," he says when he first sees the orange tabby sleeping in Bucky's lap.

"Shhh," Bucky says. "Don't wake it up."

The kittens are cautious around Lucky for about half a day, meaning that they give him the same angry 'fight me I'm invincible' attitude they gave the humans, too, until they collectively realize that Lucky wouldn't hurt a fly and then they use him as a cushion.

"Better him than me," Clint murmurs, still nursing his cuts and scratches.

If he thought he was safe in his bedroom loft, he was wrong. He doesn't know how they can _already_ climb the stairs, but they can – or they can jump straight up, but that's over 8 feet, so he doubts that – and get into a bedroom that is decidedly locked, but they can. So Clint wakes up at 4AM by feeling that someone is staring at him, and then that someone turns out to be the three kittens from hell, staring down at him from the ceiling.

Clint screams and scrambles to switch the light on, and by the time he untangles himself from the blankets, all the kittens are running around the bed – on the floor, where they belong.

Bucky is at the door, a gun and a knife drawn. _A_ , because Clint knows he has more than one of each.

"It's fine," Clint says, breathing heavily.

"Nightmare?" Bucky asks and puts the weapons away. Inside his pajamas, which, by the way, have Captain America's shield on them.

Clint might still be dreaming.

"...yes," he says, because he doesn't want to admit he hallucinated the cats on the ceiling.

"How did they even get in here?" Bucky asks, already crouching down to pet the little bastards. The white starts purring immediately, while the black one meows loud enough to wake the neighbors and the orange tabby tried to climb up his leg.

"They can open locked doors now apparently," Clint says. Bucky doesn't question this.

"You have... cats?" Steve says the first time he comes over after they got the cats. He is standing at the door awkwardly, with take-out in his hands, afraid to step over the fluffy committee.

"No," Clint says.

"Yes," Bucky says. "Come in, they don't bite."

"Yes, they do," Clint argues. His scratches still haven't healed properly, oddly enough, but he chalks it up to general bad luck with these miniature devils.

The take-out is Italian, as it turns out, and Clint loves Steve a little bit. Bucky seems okay, too, even though he must use at least one hand to keep the beasts away from his plate at all times. Steve has given up and just lets them climb up his trousers; an act that Barnes has clearly been encouraging. But he laughs when Steve jumps as the black one screams into his ear from his shoulder, and Bucky smiles as well.

Clint wants to eat some of the leftovers for lunch the next day, so he puts a healthy serving on his plate, then closes the box and places it back to the fridge before it spoils. When he turns back, his plate is empty other than the remains of the tomato sauce, and the black kitten is licking her face and paws about a foot from the table.

"What the hell," Clint mutters. "Hey, Bucky."

"Hm?"

Bucky looks up from the couch, where he's sitting cross-legged, the white cat sleeping in his lap with all fours in wild angles, purring.

"How much pasta can a cat eat in like, five seconds?"

"Is this a trick question?"

"I swear I only turned around for the blink of an eye and the black ate my lunch!"

Bucky shrugs. "One ate _my_ dinner too when I went to get my phone," he said. "I looked it up and they say kittens are very food-motivated. It's a survival thing."

"Oookay," Clint says, and puts the rest of his macaroni in the microwave, promising not to leave it unattended even for a second. "You've read up on a lot," he says, while he waits for it to heat.

"Yeah. Having kittens is like having a tiny Steve all over again; small but ready to fight." Hm. Clint wouldn't have thought of that, but it checks out. "But these at least seem good at taking care of themselves."

"They do shit that defies the laws of gravity," Clint points out.

"As if Steve never did that," Bucky laughs.

Steve begins to come over regularly. Bucky doesn't seem to mind that, and so Clint doesn't, either. Maybe Steve's read up on something useful about how to treat veterans, or maybe the few weeks of separation helped, but he hardly ever brings up the 'old Bucky' anymore. Instead, he just beams at how Bucky treats the kittens and takes a million of pictures, and even accompanies Bucky when he goes to take Lucky out.

It's cute.

Others start to show up too. Katie-Kate drops by to see the kittens – everybody wants to see the kittens. Not Clint, not Bucky, not even Lucky, but the _kittens (_ Steve may be the only exception). Clint isn't jealous; if given the choice between traumatized, depressed, ex-brainwashed marksmen and fluffy adorable undersized death-machines, Clint would go for the latter too.

By this point the kittens are what Bucky calls 'well-behaved' and what Clint calls 'eviction reasons': yes, they don't hate-fight the humans anymore, they are good with the litter-box (meaning that litter is everywhere, always, no matter how much they clean, but the used litter manages to miraculously stay where it belongs), and the scratching and biting Clint went down to close to zero. He will have the scars till he dies, but it's not like he didn't have enough before, so. Then there's the apartment, and Clint is glad he owns the place (and the whole building), because the kittens are _everywhere_. He doesn't understand how they can jump to the top of the kitchen cabinets from the floor, but they can; locked doors mean nothing, including the bathroom when he's trying to take a shower, the bedroom when he's trying to sleep, or the fridge where they are trying to keep the food. Not even hard plastic containers seem to stop them, although where they put all the food they consume (including the canned cat food, of which not even the can is found) is and remains a mystery.

But they are growing steadily and haven’t killed anybody, so Kate comes over too.

"KITTENS!" She squeals, and immediately picks the orange one up for cuddles. The kitten purrs, while the white tries to climb up her leg and the black one does eights around her ankles, mixed with meows loud enough so that Clint has to adjust his hearing aids. "Who's adorable? Yes you are, yes you are!"

Lucky wags his tail ineffectively, but Kate only has eyes for the newcomers.

"I would've come sooner if you'd told me you got cats!"

"They aren't ours," Clint protests. "Fury said he'd come back for them."

"Fury?" she wonders. "Why would Fury leave you with kittens?"

"The better questions is where he got kittens from?" Clint says.

"Either way I'm glad they're here," Bucky says. The white goes for him immediately as he stands up; it has taken to perching on his shoulder to better see the world.

"What are they called?"

"Black, orange and white," Clint says.

"You can't be serious."

"They aren't our cats!"

"Eh," she says, but doesn't try to name them, which is a bonus – it'd go like 'cutie, cutie, cutest', knowing her.

She stays over for dinner – one of the cats manages to eat her fork when she's not looking, and Clint is too embarrassed to admit it so he just gets a new one out without her noticing – and she even offers to work out with Bucky the next time. For that evening, they just settle on playing Mario Cart while the cats roam around the place.

"Is it normal that the black one just jumped straight up to the loft?" she asks casually.

"Yeah, they do it all the time," Bucky says, showing popcorn into his mouth.

"Okay," she shrugs.

Peter stops by to drop off a new set of arrows from Stark, for some reason, then can't seem to leave. The kittens love him, and he makes even more videos than Bucky did, and somehow he also ends up chatting about history homework with Bucky who begins to tell him about what life _actually_ was like in the first half of the 20th century.

It's wild, even just hearing about it from one room over, but Peter is a good audience, and Bucky doesn't seem to mind.

And then, out of nowhere, an inhuman growling starts.

Clint jumps over the kitchen table, an arrow out, ready to stab, and finds Peter and Bucky both staring at the orange tabby kitten. It has a feather from one of the toys in its mouth and is growling wickedly at its sibling.

"What the fu–"

"It's never done that before," Bucky says.

"Wow, this is so cool," Peter says, and hits record again.

Their – his – whatever, the place never seems to be empty again. Steve, Katie-Kate, Peter, and even some of the others, like Matt one time and occasionally Nat come over so often that each night, there is at least one guest over.

They begin to store more food in the fridge (occasionally, the fridge door combined with hard plastic containers are enough to protect it from the kittens), and play a lot of poker (they need to watch out for the cats to not eat the coins) and videogames, watch movies, help peter do his homework, work out with Kate and then even with Steve, all the while playing with and petting the cats, letting the cats sleep on them, and taking more pictures and videos of the three devils than any human could ever need.

"I asked May and she said she used to have a kitten that would growl at everything, too," Peter says.

Clint would argue with the term 'growling' – the actual noise sounds more like a demon is trapped inside and wants to break free.

The kittens in question are currently in a tornado around the living room, jumping from floor to furniture to wall to furniture again, so fast that they blur into one single colorful line, while Lucky doesn't even blink up from his spot next to the couch, not even when one lands on him before taking off at lightning speed again.

The company, although Clint grumbled about it at first, is actually good for Bucky. Maybe even good for him, too. It's nice that they don't have to explain their weird lives and can just hang out peacefully.

Time and distance meant that Bucky is seen as his own person more often than not, instead of a version of the old one.

Kate trains with Bucky, although he doesn't want to, at first, but she persuades him by claiming she needs to be prepared against enemy that is vastly stronger than her. It's a good argument, really, and so they spar in the corner that houses Clint's gym equipment. Bucky is cautious and wary at first, then starts to enjoy it, and laughs with Kate by the end.

Steve stops over once just as they're finishing, and so Clint and Kate escape the shouting match that follows by taking Lucky down for the third walk of the day. By the time they're back, Steve and Bucky communicate in one-syllable words, but from then on Steve also starts by to spar with him.

Peter is also a regular, and Bucky shows him how to fix the bookshelves and stairs that were, somehow, destroyed by the 3-pound kittens despite having steel screws securing them to the walls. But Bucky got reinforced brackets and Peter, despite being excellent at chemistry and various inventions Clint can't exactly claim to understand, lacks street smarts and is hanging onto Bucky's every word. Bucky, for his part, tries to use his hair to hide his smile, but he can't pretend this isn't doing wonders to his self-esteem.

"I might steal one," even Natasha says, not minding that the black kitten is kneading craters into her sweater. She scratches its chin, and the kitten yawns so wide its jaw looks ready to dislocate. The kitten seems to agree, because when Bucky is sparring with Steve and Clint and Kate are having an archery competition, and Nat comes over and decides to stretch on a yoga mat, the black kitten perches on her back and makes a game of staying on her, no matter what pose she fluidly switches into. Katie-Kate agrees that this is the best thing to happen, ever, and the only reason Nat doesn't take the black cat home is because it clearly also wants the company of siblings.

That night Peter drops by and they watch some cartoon that has them laughing and crying and laughing again, and the kittens are snarling and gnarling at each other under the couch before they fall asleep in a pile, just like the humans. Steve sleeps over, head in Bucky's lap, while Nat and Kate take over Clint's bed with the help of Lucky, and Peter sprawls out on the floor and even though they try to wake him up to find him a better place, he doesn't budge, so they just throw a blanket over him.

They next morning they discover that one or all of the kittens managed to completely demolish Clint's boxing bag. The filling is everywhere, and the beasts have even made a nest out of the remains.

"This explains some of the noise," Nat says. "I was wondering what was being scratched up."

They swipe the mess up, then shake the orange one off of the brush. Steve gets the chain off the ceiling because the white one started to gnaw on it, swaying seven feet above the ground. The black one goes up to the bathroom, then goes up again without ever coming back.

"These are exactly the types of cats one would expect Fury to have," Kate points out.

"I wasn't expecting Mr. Fury to have any sort of cats," Peter says.

"I wasn't expecting him to be alive," Clint says. "Sorry, Barnes."

"Me neither," Bucky says. "I really botched my last missions with HYDRA."

Nat snorts. "I think that's a general thing because so did I."

Steve looks torn between relief and anger, but Bucky pats his arm. "It was a joke, Stevie."

Steve relaxes his shoulders. "I know. It's just– you shouldn’t have gone throu–"

"I'm here now," Bucky says firmly, and smiles, and all the fight leaves Steve. It's fascinating to watch.

Nat is smiling covertly, mostly with her eyes, while Peter's are wide as saucepans.

And that is the moment all hell breaks loose.

The door is kicked in and the apartment is flooded with black-clad militants. Clint would guess SWAT, except the letters are missing from the Kevlar vests – but more important are the guns they all have aimed at their little gang.

Nat is the only one who immediately has a gun out and aimed at the first one through the door. Kate's bow and arrows are at the other side of the apartment. Peter doesn't have his sling shooters, Steve doesn't have his shield, and Clint is still in boxers and a T-shirt. Barnes moves in front of Steve and Peter, and Clint is sure _he_ is armed, but then again, his arm by itself is a great weapon. But he doesn't pull a gun or a knife out, and Nat doesn't fire either – there is about a dozen of the enemy as far as they can see, even more in the corridor, and there is a finger on each and every trigger.

"This is bad," Clint murmurs.

"Hey, fellas," Nat says conversationally. "What's the occasion?"

"Surrender to the mighty power of A.I.M.," says one henchman.

Steve's shoulders tighten almost imperceptibly, and Bucky's arm whirrs. Clint takes a deep breath and prepares to fight because this will surely get ugly.

And then one of the cats – the orange tabby – trots into their circle and meows.

None of the henchmen jump, but at least three shifts.

"Kitty, no," Peter grits out, and Clint can feel the seriousness of the situation shifting. Because the humans? They are all trained, some are super strong and super fast – chances are, they could win this without major losses.

But there is no guarantee to get the kittens out of the danger zone.

Clint has been through that once, with Lucky, when they met, and since than Clint has trained the dog to lay low if Clint is attacked. As such, Lucky is being a good boy and hiding behind the couch.

Clint should have thought the same to the cats as well.

The meow brings the others out as well; the black one is looking down from the stairs, and the white jumps up to the kitchen table (where it's not allowed to be, by the way) and also meows.

"Surrender," the leader henchman says once again, and his hand tightens on the gun.

Steve's jaw sets.

A weapon is powering up, but Clint couldn't tell whose it is without adjusting his hearing aids.

And then.

And then.

(If Clint wasn't watching, he wouldn't believe this is happening.)

And then the little orange tabby, who still doesn't even reach past their ankles without arching up, opens its mouth as wide as it can get, shoots _four gigantic tentacles out, wraps each around a henchman, and then eats them._

Eats the henchmen.

With tentacles.

The kitten... eats the henchmen... with tentacles.

Clint doesn't think he will ever believe this is a sentence that describes an actual event that he saw with his own two eyes.

The other henchmen are also gone and all three kittens lick their paws exactly like the way they do after being fed.

"Um," Clint says.

They are still frozen in their small circle. Nat's arm is still up and aiming a gun at an enemy that is no longer there. Steve is ready to fight. Bucky is in front of Peter, protective. The front door creeks on its hinges as it slowly starts to close by itself.

"Did you also see what I saw?" Clint asks. "Am I still awake?"

"If you saw the cats shoot tentacles out, then I saw it too," Peter says in an unusually high voice. "Are we in an alternate dimension where anime is real?"

"God I hope not," Kate says.

They still don't move.

"Okay," Steve says finally. "Nat, Bucky, secure the perimeter. Clint, surveillance from the roof. I'm going to try to reach Fury and talk to Tony. Peter... try to stay away from the kittens?"

It's only the last part that his voice betrays some doubt.

"They haven't hurt us before," Kate points out.

"I just witnessed them each take out four armed and trained operatives," Steve says. "I'd rather not take any chances."

The black kitten trots up to Nat and purrs as it does eights around her ankles.

She lets out a long sigh and puts her gun away.

"Every time I think I've seen it all, something like this has to happen," Kate murmurs.

They reconvene in Clint's living room fifteen minutes later, after they make sure that the perimeter is secure and not even a spare helmet is left of the attackers.

Trying to give a wide berth to the kittens doesn't work. The black one immediately nests in Nat's lap; the white perches on Bucky's metal shoulder, and the orange tabby curls up on Lucky's back.

Steve eyes the white with mistrust – not an expression Clint has ever thought he'd see on his face aimed at a kitten, but he can’t blame him.

"Are we sure that is a good idea," Steve asks flatly.

"C'mon, Stevie," Bucky says, scratching the kitten's chin. Its purrs fill the whole room. "They haven't eaten us yet and I'm sure they won't now either."

"Still–"

"If we try to take them out now we'll just end up in tentacles," Nat adds, scratching behind the black kitten's ears.

Steve purses his lips.

Clint, for his part, agrees with Bucky and Nat. That voice inside that warns him about potentially good things – well, it is loud now about the cats. Clint has a good feeling about this.

"So, what now?" he asks and sits down next to Lucky and the orange tabby to demonstrate his stance.

Steve sighs but doesn't protest. "I left a message for Fury, and told Tony about A.I.M."

"...and the kittens?" Kate asks.

"No," Steve says. "I didn't know where to start."

Bucky cocks his head and nods, and the rest agree as well. Peter eases down onto the couch an arm’s length away from Nat.

"So," he asks, "did Mr. Fury leave you with killer cats on purpose?"

"Which is more likely, that he didn't know they could do this, or that he did but didn't tell you?" Kate asks.

"Definitely the latter," Clint says.

"We didn't know they could do this until we were attacked," Bucky points out.

"In hindsight we really should've," Steve said.

"Steve, we knew shit about cats until we got these," Bucky says.

"We still know nothing, because these aren't normal cats, apparently," Kate says.

"I mean they didn't behave that differently from {the shop cat}," Peter says, and when they look at him with disbelief, he adds, "I mean, he just slept all day, but so did these, a lot!"

Nat is suspiciously silent; Clint doesn't doubt that she is embarrassed for not realizing the cats were... whatever they are.

"What do we do with them now?" Steve asks.

"...nothing new?" Clint says.

"But," Steve says, then falls silent.

"Listen, we know that what we've been doing didn't trigger them but the A.I.M. goons did, so it's not rocket science to just do what we've been doing but not what A.I.M. did," Bucky says.

"So good that you didn't mention this to Stark because there's no way he wouldn't try some experiments," Clint adds.

Bucky's metal arm tightens on the kitten's scruff, and it meows in protest, but doesn't eat anybody – proof that they are, as a matter of fact, as safe as they can be.

The next few days pass in a similar vein: people come over, do stuff, the cats are just as crazy as before. Steve, Kate and Peter are more timid towards them than before, whereas Bucky, Nat and Clint act as if nothing's changed.

"These are the best personal protection animals," Nat proclaims. The black kitten seems to be in love with her.

Now that they know what's up, they can tell that the kittens eating the cat food with the can, unopened, is not normal; but in their defense– sometimes smart people are dumb too. And Clint himself has never been the smartest of any bunch.

Fury shows up out of nowhere one afternoon when Steve and Nat happen to be over.

The doorbell rings, and Clint opens it, expecting pizza or Peter, and instead, it's the ex-Director of SHIELD, in his black leather jacket and eyepatch, followed by a blonde woman in a brown leather jacket.

"Sir," Clint nods and lets them in.

The kittens will eat the enemy, should one show up, anyway.

Fury eyes Bucky with the one eye he has, and Bucky lets his hair fall into his face in defense. Steve steps forward.

"Barton, Rogers, Barnes, this is Captain Danvers," Fury says, gesturing at the woman.

"Captain," Steve says. She is looking at them, then at the kitten currently in the process of climbing up Bucky's leg. "Director–"

"I am no such thing," Fury interrupts. "Now, I got your message–"

"Yeah," Steve says and crosses his arms. "A.I.M. attacked us."

"I assume you took care of it," Fury deadpans and raises his eyebrow. Danvers watches the white one take its usual surveillance position on Bucky's shoulder.

"We did, with a little help," Steve nicks in the white kitten’s direction.

Fury raises his chin. "Ah. Yes. That."

"So they have tentacles as well? How many?" Danvers asked.

"Four," Bucky said.

"As well?" Steve asked.

"Yeah, I had this cat... well, it's not a cat, it's a Flerken," Danvers says, and pulls out a phone to show an adult cat in a collar looking like the grown-up version of the little orange tabby. "But we thought it was a cat for a while."

"Yeah, so did we," Steve says.

"And then it ate someone that was coming after you with the tentacles?" Danvers asked.

"Wow, it's as if you've seen this before," Steve says, voice still dry. Danvers looks a bit offended, so Fury steps in.

"Look, I didn't know if the kittens would even show what they can do at such a young age," he begins, but Steve interrupts him.

"So you just left it with a recovering POW?"

"I left it with one of my most talented agents who's proven himself good with animals," Fury retorts. "It wasn't up to me where your recovering POW was recovering at, especially not after he tried to kill me."

"Wow, you tried to kill him?" Danvers asks Bucky, interested.

"I didn't really know who I was at the time," Bucky says defensively. "Lost a buncha my memories."

Something in her eyes flickers. "I lost all my memories for six years," she says. "Didn't even remember my name."

"I didn't _have_ a name," Bucky counters. "I was called the Asset."

"Okay, you win," Danvers says. "I was only instructed to fight on the wrong side of a war."

"Tell me about it," Bucky says. "Why do you think I tried to kill Fury?"

Fury lifts the other eyebrow. "Good thing Stark isn't here, I'm sure he has a list."

"And if he knew about the cats, I'm sure that would be on that list," Steve adds.

Wow, he really is mad about this, Clint thinks. 

Then again, Cap has more than one reason to be mad at Fury after what happened with SHIELD and HYDRA – SHIELDRA?

"As I said, I didn't know–"

"And I think we've done this before – would you have done anything differently if you had?"

Fury purses his lips. "Listen. These creatures can do a lot of damage in the wrong hands. I needed them secure while I got Carol."

"And now what?" Nat asks. The black cat is purring up a storm in her arms.

"Goose – the adult Flerken – is still living with Fury, no problem," Danvers says. "But I can take them and give them to a friend who's good with Flerken."

"You have a cat named Goose?" Clint can't help but ask.

"It's not a cat, it's a Flerken," Fury says. "And I only kept it because he ate the Tesseract."

"I'm sorry, he _what_?" Bucky asks.

Fury, though usually one with the best poker face, looks like he wishes the ground would open up and swallow him whole rather than continue this conversation.

"It's a long story," Danvers says. "We thought Goose was a normal cat until he ate a bunch of Kree that tried to kill us and then also ate the Tesseract."

"Kree?"

"Aliens. Told you it's a long story. Fury also lost his eye because Goose scratched it," she adds, and Fury looks ready to strangle her.

Steve pinches the bridge of his nose. "And you didn't think to tell that to us? Clint's been scratched up all over!"

"Yeah, I was wondering why they were healing slower than normal," Clint says, even though he hasn't, really – when one has as many bruises and burns as he does, he kinda loses track after a while.

Now even Nat looks pissed. "Good to know not many things have changed since your 'death'," she says viciously, and that hurts Fury.

He'd always liked her the most, and Clint can't blame him; so has he.

"I really, really believed the kittens wouldn't be like this until they matured," he said, finally with some apology in his voice. "But we are here now and will take them off of your hands."

Bucky's eyes widen; Nat's hands spasm on the black kitten. Clint thinks of how disappointed Kate will be to lose the orange tabby.

"No you won't," Steve says.

"Pardon?"

"We are not doing this again," Steve says.

"I thought you called me back for a reason?"

"Yeah, and that reason was to find out what was going on," Steve says. "How dangerous these cats – Flerkens – are and what else we need to know about them. Nobody said anything about giving them up to you."

Clint kind of admires how fast Steve can shift gears. A day – hell, even just an hour ago – he was ready to do just that; but now, seeing how Bucky and Nat reacted to the potential loss, he changed his stance too.

"They aren't yours," Fury says, crossing his arms.

Danvers is beginning to look impressed by Steve. Clint can relate.

"Yeah, I don't care. You have no right to leave them behind, let us get emotionally invested, then take them away again. The kittens also clearly love being here, so just tells us if cat food is good for them and how to avoid them eating us, and that will be all."

"You know, once I would've said that nobody can be more annoying than Stark," Fury said.

Nat snorts. "You should know better, Sir," she says.

"Are you really ready to fight over this?" Fury asks. "Flerken are guard animals, not house pets. We need them."

"You wanna put kittens in combat situations?" Bucky asks.

"You saw how 'defenseless' they are," Fury says.

But Bucky is angling the white away from the rest of them. Clint's eye, however, is mostly on Danvers, who is looking at their small group with furrowed brows.

"Come on, we don't have time for this," Fury says impatiently and leans forward, one arm extending to get one of the cats.

"No, wait," Danvers says and grabs his hand. "Rogers is right."

Fury looks at her as if she's grown three heads. "You can't be serious."

"I know how important stability is after you've had your whole world and identity torn from you," she says, looking at Bucky and the white kitten. "We've been fine without the Flerken kitties before, we'll be fine without them too."

Fury gapes. Actually gapes. It's a sight.

"Captain, you can't be _serious_ ," he repeats.

"I am," she says. "I left Goose with you, why can't we leave the kittens with them?"

"Shall I list the reasons?"

"Nah, just trust me on this. Hey, are these the Avengers you named after me?"

Fury looks taken aback, but not as much as the Avengers do.

"After you?" Clint asks.

"Captain Carol 'Avenger' Danvers of the USAF," she grins.

"Oh, Sam Wilson will be glad to meet you," Nat says.

"And I'm glad to meet Captain America," Danvers tells Steve. "I heard a lot about you."

"I'm sorry I can't say the same," Steve says. "But I hope that'll change. Would you like to stay for lunch?"

"Absolutely," she says.

"Hey," Fury says.

"I'd give up if I were you," Nat tells him. "Both Captains seem equally unmovable."

In the end, Fury leaves without the kittens. Danvers – Carol – stays and gets on really well with Steve. No wonder: she seems to have a thing for disregarding authority and expectations as well, not to mention her apparent past as a brainwashed amnesiac fighting under the command of a gaslighting asshole.

After lunch she and Bucky began to one up each other again with their past while Steve looks increasingly distressed. Nat, and then even Clint joins them with their own tales.

"I was brought back by my partner and our daughter," Carol says. "Maria and Monica."

She, of course, has a picture of them: a black woman and their daughter, all dressed in Air Force merch.

"For me it was Steve," Bucky says. "I tried to kill him first, though."

"Oh, I missed that part, thankfully," Carol says.

"I shot him three times," Bucky confesses shamefully. Steve takes his hand.

"I dislocated his shoulder and choked him unconscious," he says. "We had to stop HYDRA taking over the world, though."

"I just concussed Clint," Nat says. "That worked really well."

"I've only been compromised for a few days thought," Clint says. "Nat and Bucky had been for decades."

"Yeah, it took me a while to recover," Nat says. "And I came back without my partner having to be there."

She looks awfully smug when the others blush.

"So, how are you going to call the cats?" Carol asks.

Nat is petting the black one, who in return is grooming her. Clint wonders how she's not bleeding yet from the intense treatment. "Liho," she says after a brief consideration.

Bucky is leaning so that he's more on top of Steve than the couch that they're both sitting on, the white kitten between them, Steve finally unbothered by it.

"Alpine," Bucky says.

Steve shudders. "Must we name it after the Alps," he groans.

"I fell from a train and Steve thought I had died, but I only got into the enemy camp for like seven decades," Bucky explains. "And I don't want the name to be tied to a horrible event anymore. I'm back."

Steve looks at Bucky the way only ever Lucky has looked at Clint.

"Imma let Katie name the orange one," Clint says. "I'm good with Lucky."

The fact that Bucky is able to keep Alpine serves as a symbolical even for him and Steve, it seems, because not only is Steve coming over to Bucky on a daily basis – at least when Bucky isn't going to meet him elsewhere – but their relationship evens out enough that Bucky tells Clint one night that they are looking for a place to move into together.

"I told him that I'll never be who I used to be," Bucky says. "It took him a while, but he's okay with it too. And I want to be his best friend again, just like before."

It turns out Steve's also talking a lot to Maria Rambeau, Carol's partner, while Carol herself has a lot to share with Bucky and Nat and Clint. It's a weird group therapy they are having, but Clint isn't complaining. He's also feeling better than before, so much so that he asks Kate if she'd be interested in moving into an apartment that recently freed up two stores below.

"It has two bedrooms, so it's comfy," Clint says awkwardly when he shows her the place.

"Mhm," she says. "A bit big for me alone."

"I'm sure you'll have enough friends to bring over," Clint says.

She rolls her eyes. "Clint, you are such an idiot. I want you to move down here with me."

"Me? Why?"

"I swear to God," she murmurs. "Because Tabitha and Lucky are too good friends to be separated."

Tabitha isn't the worst name for the orange kitten, at least.

"Okay," Clint says, and that's how he ends up renting his loft out instead.

Nobody would ever call Clint the smartest Avenger, including himself. No matter if that's street-smarts or book-smarts or any other kind of smarts, Clint will always be the last on that list.

But he has his own skills that he's proud of, and some that he wouldn't consider a skill, just... some other weird shit that happens around him a lot.

He has that feeling under his gut that lets him know who's worth keeping around, and it definitely worked with Thor, and Nat, and Bucky, and with the Flerken-kittens who are just as demonic as before, but Clint is very thankful that Steve managed to keep them back from Fury. He wouldn't trade living with Lucky and Kate and Tabitha, and occasionally Nat and Liho, for the world.

And even after Bucky moves out and together with Steve to just a few blocks away, they come around often. Bucky shows them pictures of Alpine curling up and sleeping in the shield, and Steve complains that he also chews on the vibranium, but he also can't stop smiling when he's looking at Bucky or the photos, so it's fine. Their movie nights continue once a week, involving not only the Flerken-owners but Peter, and then the rest of the Avengers who trickle in too.

Bucky promises Tony that he'll come over to his lab, but he also sets boundaries, and even manages to be in the same room with Sam without either of them needed to be told to behave. Kate buys a bigger couch a few weeks down the line so that they can all get comfortable, but of course the Flerken-cats take up most of the space on that one as well.

"This is all your doing," Kate tells him when they go out to the kitchen to make more popcorn.

"I didn't do anything," Clint says.

"You're the glue that holds them together," she says, nodding back to the living room.

And even if Clint doesn't quite believe her, the warm feeling in his chest is too comfortable to argue against.


End file.
